Judge Martin Feldman wants to know more about offshore oil drilling ban

U.S. District Court Judge Martin Feldman has asked the federal government and Hornbeck Offshore Services, the Covington marine services company that has challenged the offshore oil drilling ban, for additional information to help him decide whether the government's July 12 moratorium is indeed a new policy, or whether it's the same policy that he struck down in June. In doing so, Feldman hopes to answer the question of whether the Hornbeck suit against Interior Secretary Ken Salazar should be dismissed as moot because the government rescinded the original May 28 moratorium that aroused Hornbeck's ire and replaced it with a new policy in July, or whether the Hornbeck suit should continue because the policy is essentially the same. "I'd like to see a comparison of the pre-May 28 information and the post-May 28 information that led to the July 12 directive," Feldman said, saying that he wanted to evaluate claims of whether there really is new evidence that blowout preventers don't work, that the industry is unprepared to stop deepwater blowouts and respond to spills, and that operators other than BP may also engage in unsafe drilling practices...more